Argentina's record-breaking $16.5 billion sovereign bond issue transcended business and finance: It was a matter of historic national significance.

The deal—the largest ever emerging markets debt offering, comfortably eclipsing the $11 billion raised by Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. in 2013—lifted a cloud that had been hanging over the country ever since its $80 billion debt default in 2001.

Its proceeds allowed Argentina to finally end more than a decade of fierce litigation with holdout creditors that had seen the country essentially locked out of international capital markets—the offering was its first international bond issue for over 15 years—and led to another sovereign default in 2014.